Day 20

Naghmeh Samini
Sunday 24 February 2019

 The woman is at the airport. She is sitting in an armchair, recording her voice. She is calm and relaxed. Behind her, an airplane can be seen through a large window.

The woman: You know what?! When there is no writer writing your story, everything looks scary at first. You feel stressed and lonely. You feel like you are in an unending fall into nowhere where you’d become no one, where you’d see nothing but darkness. I felt the same when She–the writer– told me I was no longer her character. I felt I was being thrown into nowhere to become no one and to see nothing but darkness. I had ruined her plot, unintentionally, and she was angry at me. She left me behind, in return, and got busy with her own life. I felt like someone who was never born, never there…  But gradually, I felt something, a sense of warmth a surge of energy ran through my joints. I felt…how can I explain…I felt light…The burden of the plot was no longer on my shoulders…Do you know What I mean? …I felt free, like a seagull, and happy like the old secondhand book seller in St Andrews…and then I forgot everything…All memories I mean! The only thing I could remember was ‘The magic of hands’.

The magic of hands!… Where did I hear that? The magic of hands… Who was it that told me about the magic of hands? It doesn’t matter really.  The important thing is that when I think about the last 20 days, I remember nothing but the frightening sound, noise of the train getting closer and closer…No! I can’t remember anything else…then suddenly your hands…the inviting warmth of your hands…The magic of your hands…Warmth…calm happiness…the sweet taste of togetherness.  It was as if in the warmest, pleasantly warmest, place in the world, I was losing myself in a wave that would allow me to find my real self, the one which was not embittered, the one which was free from bitter memories.… I remember discovering the map of your body, for the first time in my life… and it was full of very narrow alleys, rocks, a sea extending to the horizon and three streets: North one for pain, south one for pleasure, and the middle one for love. While exploring the map of your body I discovered myself as a self … as me… as I … I become I!

-Who are you?

-I am I!

-Who are you?

-I am I!

-Who are you ?

-I am I!

Now I, Who I Am, am going to go to start my journey. As I promised I will remember the last 20 days, to try to understand what happened to me. I will send my story day by day … And you remember that you DID promise me NOT to go to any station and NOT to stare at any clock, till the end of my story. I try to remember what happened for me in last 20 days, but, my love, I can’t separate what I imagine from my memories… So if in my memories you find seagulls having a conversation and singing, or the ghosts of fathers speaking English, don’t get confused. If I talk about you as a master of pretention, please forgive me…

This will be a journey for both of us. Don’t forget that you promised not to reply to my voice massages. Just listen and let my story melt in you. Then wait for the following night’s story, and let this waiting for listening to a new story sustain you, nourish your desire for life … Then when I finished telling my stories, it will be your turn to tell me your stories of the last 20 days, day by day…Then… There is no then! Whether we see each other again or not, the stories will help us find ourselves, and know who the other one really is!

A voice urges the passengers of the 16:35 flight to Istanbul to get on board.

The Woman: I am going to get on the airplane in a few minutes. So let me start the story of the first day…

The woman looks at the audience in silence. Her voice can be heard.

The voice of the woman: 35 messages! Are you crazy? I have not read them yet, and I won’t!

Pause

I was predictable because of English. With you I felt always like a child in front of her father who knows all the words…

Pause

I need to shout. I need to shout at my boyfriend in Persian. But I can’t! I need to speak in Persian . Do you know anybody who can speak Persian in St Andrews?

Pause

I was always watching you, with open eyes, every night, I slept after you and every morning I woke up before you.

Pause

A man and a woman approach her. They are seagulls, but apart from some weird movements and attitudes, they show no other signs of being birds.

Pause

No! you  can never understand my feeling , Hamish. Everybody in St Andrews adored you when you were alive.

Pause

We did not sleep together, We waged wars, irrationally , unnecessarily. It was always like that.

Pause

The Woman stops speaking, but her other hands moves forward, and she presses his hand with both of her hands. The Man turns and looks at her.

Darkness

 

Share this story